Azure Virtual Machines – Overview

Overview

Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) provide on-demand, scalable computing resources with flexible configurations and operating system choices. Use VMs to run applications, host services, and develop/testing environments.

VMs integrate with the broader Azure ecosystem, offering features like managed disks, high availability sets, and auto-scaling.

Key Features

Custom VM Sizes: Choose from a broad catalog of sizes optimized for compute, memory, storage, and GPU workloads.
Operating System Support: Windows Server, Linux distributions, and custom images.
High Availability: Availability Sets, Zones, and Managed Disks for resiliency.
Scale Sets: Automatically increase or decrease VM count based on metrics.
Security: Azure Security Center integration, encrypted disks, and network security groups.

Pricing & Billing

VM pricing is based on selected size, OS, region, and usage type (pay-as-you-go, Reserved Instances, Spot VMs). View the pricing calculator for detailed estimates.

az vm list-skus --location eastus --output table

Quick Start

Deploy a Linux VM using Azure CLI:

# Create a resource group
az group create --name MyResourceGroup --location eastus

# Create a virtual network and subnet
az network vnet create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --name MyVnet \
  --subnet-name MySubnet

# Create a public IP address
az network public-ip create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --name MyPublicIP

# Create a network security group with SSH rule
az network nsg create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --name MyNSG

az network nsg rule create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --nsg-name MyNSG \
  --name AllowSSH \
  --protocol tcp \
  --priority 1000 \
  --destination-port-range 22 \
  --access Allow

# Create a network interface
az network nic create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --vnet-name MyVnet \
  --subnet MySubnet \
  --network-security-group MyNSG \
  --public-ip-address MyPublicIP \
  --name MyNic

# Create the VM
az vm create \
  --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
  --name MyLinuxVM \
  --image UbuntuLTS \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --nics MyNic

Best Practices

Use Managed Disks for better performance and reliability.
Group VMs into Availability Sets or Zones to avoid single points of failure.
Employ Azure Backup and Disk Snapshot for data protection.
Leverage Azure Monitor and Log Analytics for health and performance insights.
Consider Spot VMs for non-critical workloads to reduce costs.

Frequently Asked Questions